bichoo

I need to book reward on a specific flight from YVR-YUL in May 2020 and there is no reward available in either Y or J. What's strange is from looking at the seat map, only 1 seat in J is occupied and Y is completely empty. Is there a good chance that more seats in either class will open up as the weeks progress? I'm thinking of setting up a alert in expertflyer. Does AC release award inventory sporadically as the flight date nears? Thoughts?

dr_torch

The seat map is not a good indicator of load. Not everybody selects a seat.

Apparently it is "dynamic" inventory so seats could be released at any time (they also may not be)

Stranger

Currently booked on an itinerary for which one leg looks very nearly empty. That leg has changed twice so far but no notification and the file needs cleaning up; I suspect they are in no rush because they expect further changes. I have my old seat assignment and until the file gets cleaned up I cannot change it to the new equipment seat plan. (Current seats don't exist on that plane) So many of the earlier seat assignments are just not there but in reality the plane is not empty. Anyway my point is, if the plane looks unreasonably empty, it probably is not in reality.

montrealer

AC does not release seats for points on the basis of "how full is this flight now" but on the basis of "what does our yield management predict we will be able to sell on this flight" combined with "what are our obligations how many seats to release systemwide vs what will it likely cost us to instead release seats on some other flight". AC also does not, in general, release additional seats on an ongoing basis, though I have seen it do it occasionally. I hypothesize those were special situations where their yield management refreshed the model for that flight. (In situations I have seen, it was always due to flight or equipment realignment on that route, not merely "we're not selling as many seats for $ as we thought".)

All of this means that unless you're willing to wait for a broad schedule/equipment realignment and *hope* for a resultant rejigger, I would just assume this flight will not be available and make alternative arrangements. You can then monitor, manually or on EF, and be prepared to make a change if availability does open up.

This is all for conventional Aeroplan availability. If you have Priority Access, that availability is more complicated and (partially) linked to actual sold capacity, and as a result somewhat more dynamic. And all bets are off for what *might* change going forward since Air Canada will be tinkering with the AP program in coming months in a way which is clearly both policy- as well as implementation/system linkage-driven.

MaxFlying

Expertflyer will not show you availability specific to Aeroplan. Keep checking on the Aeroplan site.

Bohemian1

Nevermind

tracon

You could always book a seat on a flight you don't want.
Hope for a schedule change to get the flight you want.
Maybe book a flight with a tight connection and/or a Max segment.